Dail Sketch Marie O'HalloranThe Minister for Defence has a "penchant" for F-words, the Dáil discovered recently.
Michael Smith demonstrated that fondness once again when he took leaders' questions and the Order of Business yesterday.
He was returning to the scene of his verbal "faux pas", where he had previously muttered the unparliamentary four-letter swear word that so shocked the tender-eared members of the Press Gallery.
So there was a certain frisson when he appeared in the Chamber, to lead the business of the day in the absence of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste.
Surely he wouldn't use the F-word again? Indeed, he was careful to sit right back from the microphone when he wasn't on his feet, having learnt the hard way that mutters or whispers to colleagues can still be heard by that efficient piece of technology.
But there was a very clear use of F-words when he responded to Labour leader Pat Rabbitte's taunts about the Hanly report and the Minister's local hospital in Nenagh.
Rather than shock, however, there was a certain ooh la la response from the assembled TDs when Mr Smith expanded on his F-word vocabulary, because he used some French words.
He called Mr Rabbitte by the French version of his name when he said that "once again, Monsieur Lapin has got it wrong".
After a soupçon of a pause Monsieur Lapin responded that "it's difficult enough to take the Minister in English".
The Minister's F-words may have held something of a double entendre, for Monsieur Lapin it was who some years ago said that listening to the Minister was akin to listening to a Monsignor on a bad telephone line from Medjujorge.
This rather à la carte line in repartee developed when the Minister insisted that the parts of the Hanly report dealing with Nenagh and Ennis hospitals had changed and that the two hospitals would keep their accident and emergency services.
Monsieur Lapin, whose party sees la vie en rose, asked when the provision had changed. "Since when will Hanly be implemented everywhere else but not in Nenagh?" he asked, pointing out that the loss of accident and emergency would be delayed in Nenagh and Ennis for only two years.
But if it is normally derigueur for the Minister to speak with the certain je ne sais quoi tones of a Monsignor, the calm, clerical demeanour deserted him when he snapped at the Labour leader "you're not going to wrap Nenagh hospital around yourself in this election. I'll make sure you don't."
He said Mr Rabbitte "would love to convince the people in North Tipperary and elsewhere that the change will be only made for two years but that is wrong".
Mr Smith then made his tour de force comment of the day. "You can't open a building unless you build it first," he said, which remark provoked a spontaneous round of applause and laughter.
"Is that a French concept as well?" asked Mr Rabbitte.
It was another joie de vivre Dáil day.